


crux

by rincewitch



Series: Warrior of Moonlight [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: F/M, FFxivWrite2020, Gen, Tumblr: FFXIVwrite2020, big spoilers for 5.3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:02:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26244607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rincewitch/pseuds/rincewitch
Summary: ffxiv write 2020 day 1: cruxHades grins. “Yes, well, it’s important to keep one’s eyes on the prize.”Persephone gives him a skeptical look. “What the heck is that meant to mean?”Hades responds by gently putting his hand on Persephone’s cheek and turning her head so she’s looking right at the Capitol.“The government?”“The Convocation,” he says.
Relationships: Azem/Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch, Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch & Warrior of Light
Series: Warrior of Moonlight [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1905535
Kudos: 22
Collections: #FFxivWrite2020 Final Fantasy 30 Day Writing Challenge, Emet-Selch's Wholesomely Debauched Bookclub FFXIV-Writes 2020 Collection





	crux

**Author's Note:**

> ffxiv write 2020 day 1: crux
> 
> nb: contains spoilers for 5.3

Persephone stares out the window, as she often does; there is always, always more of the world to take in. Hades’ apartment is small and cramped in a way no manner of tasteful decor or artful lighting can hide. For all Amaurot’s wonders, for all its abundance, for all that thought becomes form at the snap of a finger, no hitherto-approved concept is capable of creating free real estate. Living in a place like Achora Heights— in the Polyleritae District, just a few blocks away from Macarenses Angle, that crux of the city’s great civic, cultural, and academic landmarks— could not  _ possibly _ be cheap.

But damn if the view wasn’t amazing. The Hall of Rhetoric and the Bureau of the Architect to the right, the Administrative and Secretarial bureaus to the left, and the imposing bulk of the Capitol and the towering spire of the Akadaemia dead ahead. Beneath them, the streets were a river of shimmering light, a garland of streetlamps and archways, vehicles and pedestrians, and a bewildering variety of concepts, strung along the whole city.

Also, it’s still bigger than her shitty dorm room back on the Anyder campus. No wonder she’s spending most of her time here instead, these days.

She can’t help but worry a bit about her plants, though. She’d had all of them duly registered at the Bureau, so if worse came to worst she could just empty out her planters, retrieve their concepts, and start again. It was still a bit depressing to think of the first batch she’d created and spent weeks nurturing withering away in her absence, though.

Oh well. Maybe her roommate was watering them, or something.

“Hey, Hades,” she says, taking a step back from the window, “Why’d you decide to live here?”

Hades laughs. “Oh, are the accommodations not to your liking,  _ your highness?” _

Persephone stifles a laugh of her own. “The accommodations are  _ extremely  _ to my liking. Great view, great location, convenient access to boyfriend at all hours.”

“So!” Hades says, putting his hand on her shoulder, “You’ll have no objections if I start charging you rent, then?”

Persephone chooses not to dignify this with a response. “What I meant,” she says instead, continuing her earlier line of thought, “Is that if you’re living off-campus  _ anyway,  _ you could probably find a place three times bigger than this if you lived even a  _ bit _ further from the Angle.”

Hades grins. “Yes, well, it’s important to keep one’s eyes on the prize.”

Persephone gives him a skeptical look. “What the heck is  _ that  _ meant to mean?”

Hades responds by gently putting his hand on Persephone’s cheek and turning her head so she’s looking right at the Capitol.

“The government?”

“The  _ Convocation _ ,” he says.

Persephone rolls her eyes. “Wow. I love how you’re so humble and down-to-earth, with modest, attainable plans.”

He rubs his thumb over the short, clipped hairs at the nape of Persephone’s neck— a habit he’d picked up when she’d first had her hair cut fashionably short. “I’m not saying it’s not a long-term goal.”

“There’s long-term goals, and there’s picking out your seat with the Fourteen when you’re in your second damn year at Akadaemia. One’s ambition, the other’s… I don’t even know what.”

“You wound me, Persephone!” he says, with theatrical dismay, “I haven’t gone so far as picking a  _ particular  _ seat. After all, there are fourteen of ‘em to choose from.”

“Lahabrea, the Speaker, maybe,” Persephone says, her tone deadpan but still resting her head on his shoulder affectionately. “Because you never—”

“—because I never shut up, yes, yes, I saw that one coming from  _ miles _ away. Let no one say I’m a man unaware of his flaws.”

They stand like that for a few moments, quiet and companionable, each leaning their weight on the other. Hades, of course, is the first to speak again. “What’s  _ your _ dream, then? That  _ allegedly _ more sensible and attainable long term goal of yours?”

Persephone shrugs. “I don’t know… getting a position with the phytobiology faculty, maybe. With tenure, if I’m lucky. And…”

“And?”

“And opportunities for field research, I think. I love Amaurot, and it will always, always be home. But...” She takes a deep breath. “But there’s a whole world out there, Hades. How can I make concepts worth a damn when I’ve only seen a tiny fragment of it?”

“Great!” Hades says, “I’ll pencil you in for Azem’s seat, then.”

“What? I— ugh, Hades, you’re  _ infuriating,” _ she says fondly.

Hades laughs, rich and mellifluous. “And  _ you _ , my love, are  _ adorable  _ when you pout.”

***

Even with the night restored, even with the Elidibus’s mad dream of the Warrior of Light put down, even after her comrades were safely delivered to the Source and a new generation of heroes rising to meet the future’s challenge, Rinh Panipahr finds herself coming back to the First, again and again, for as long as the situation in her native star remains calm.

As the Warrior of Darkness, she’s sole bridge between two worlds, forever linked by fate but separated by vast gulfs of time and space. She’s the last tie that binds her fellow Scions to those dear to them they’d left behind.

So she goes back and forth, carrying tokens and fond wishes and gifts from one realm to the other. Letters from Alphinaud to the Chais, tea leaves from Runar to Y’shtola, sweets from Alisaie to Halric, a promise to teach Ryne the art of the gunblade in Thancred’s stead, a promise to clean Bismarck’s teeth in Urianger’s.

She remembers her promise to Emet-Selch, too. So she walks the streets of that phantom Amaurot he’d built beneath Kholusia’s stormy seas, trying to take in as many details as she can. She’s worried the whole place might fade away after its architect’s demise, but it hasn’t shown any sign of it yet; maybe it was well within the capabilities of an unsundered Ancient to create a self-perpetuating illusion on this scale. Or maybe it wasn’t, in which case it’s only a matter of time until it, too, is irrevocably lost.

Better safe than sorry. 

At first, she expected some manner of revelation; she’d see just the right thing in just the right way and Azem would come flooding back. It didn’t work like that, of course. This isn’t the  _ real _ Amaurot— it’s pure artifice. But it was the artifice of a man who’d once lived in this place, who’d fought for it, who loved it with all his heart, until nothing else in all the shards, with all of their singular wonders, felt as real as the fading memory of it.

So Rinh figures, if nothing else, it has to at least be a decent primary source to learn from.

Today, she’s exploring Achora Heights. She hadn’t been there since she and the Scions first came to Amaurot, and even then she’d only really seen the elevator.

She’s walking down a long corridor when she hears music in the distance. She follows it and finds a small apartment— and that, in and of itself, was odd. Nothing was small in Amaurot. But everything in this particular room was her size—the radio playing staticy music, the comfy armchair, the double bed, the pair of desks, one meticulously organized with architectural perfection, one a whorl of books and papers and flowers in tiny pots, the clutter of a brilliant but restless mind.

Was this place built for her? A place to find comfort and rest while she waited for the Light to finish devouring her, perhaps? Or maybe it was meant for Emet-Selch himself; he was still in his mortal vessel most of the time he was here, after all.

It feels familiar and homey, in any case. As she often does in Amaurot, she feels a nostalgia for something just on the other side of memory, just out of reach.

She wanders over to the first, more spartan desk. She picks up a framed photograph that had been left face-down on the desktop. She flips it over and sees herself staring at a portrait of a young woman. She’s wearing Amaurotine robes, but her hood is down, and she’s holding her mask in her hands. She has dark hair cut into a short bob, straight-cut bangs just over a pair of bright eyes. In some ways, she looks quite like Rinh— the same round face, the same aquiline nose, the same rosebud lips. She’s slightly blurry, laughing at a joke told by whoever had taken her picture right as the flash went off.

She stares at the woman. The woman stares off into an eternity just out-of-frame.

_ Azem,  _ thinks Rinh,  _ Who were you? _


End file.
